NEW YORK, NEW YORK -- March 16th of this year was a momentus day for
nearly 15,000 medical students across the U.S., including LDS medical
student Christopher Degn. A student at New York Medical College, the
medical school of Cornel University. The fourth-year medical
student, with virtually all of his peers, participated in the
National Residency Matching Program to match students with residency
programs across the U.S.

''It's probably the second most meaningful day in medical school,''
Dr. Susan Anderson Kline, executive vice dean of academic affairs.
''The first is commencement, because you really join the profession
and your family gets to call you doctor. But this determines what
kind of career they're going to have, and it has a lot to do with
where they're going to live -- certainly for the next several years
and maybe for the rest of their lives.''

The program uses a computer algorithm to match students to either
their first, second or third choice of residency programs. At New
York Medical College, 47 percent matched to their first choice, 28
percent to their second and 12 percent to their third. Just five
percent didn't match at all, but managed to get a residency after a
few days of scrambling.

Degn says that the match isn't quite the most momentous of his life.
He reserves that for the day he received his mission call to France,
like the match, a unknown that will have an affect on the next few
years of a person's life. ''Opening this envelope -- where everyone
opens it all together -- it's almost like career voyeurism,'' Mr.
Degn said. ''And to trust your life to an algorithm requires a lot of
faith.''

Unlike most of his peers, Degn went to medical school as a married
man and father of three, leading his friends at school to marvel at
his stamina. But Degn says that having a family is ''more of a
blessing than a curse.'' He says that playing with his kids helped
melt the tensions of school.

And his family had an affect on his choice for a residency. ''The
reason I chose interventional radiology is because I have three
kids,'' Mr. Degn said. ''Interventional, so I can directly save
lives. Radiology so I can save my marriage. All the procedure
residency programs are notorious for their divorce rates -- some even
boast of that.''

And when Degn opened the envelope, he was pleased to get his second
choice, the University of Kentucky at Louisville. Both Degn and his
family were pleased, because Louisville offered a particular benefit,
''This is the only place we could go where we could afford to buy a
house,'' Mr. Degn said with his arm around his wife, Mindy. ''No more
renting.'' Even his 5-year-old daughter Aubrielle quickly caught the
significance, ''Can we get a dog?'' she asked.